Tools

Histogram

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​Institute for Healthcare ImprovementCambridge, Massachusetts,USA

Often, summary statistics alone do not give a complete and informative picture of the performance of a process. A histogram is a special type of bar chart used to display the variation in continuous data like time, weight, size, or temperature.

A histogram enables a team to recognize and analyze patterns in data that are not apparent simply by looking at a table of data, or by finding the average or median.

December 1, 2016 | Against a backdrop of hundreds of improvements that are being tracked and reported on by thousands of health systems in the US alone, guidance on which measures are most important to the pursuit of better care, better health, and lower cost couldn’t be more timely.

This white paper presents Whole System Measures 2.0, a set of 15 measures to help health care system leaders and boards better understand their organization’s current (and desired) performance across three (Triple Aim) domains population health, experience of care, and per capita cost.

This white paper provides suggested measures for the three dimensions of the Triple Aim, accompanied by data sources and examples, and describes how these measures might be used along with process and outcome measures for particular projects to create a learning system to achieve the Triple Aim.

The authors propose a policy that quality measurement should be parsimonious to measure quality, outcomes, and costs with appropriate metrics that are selected based on needs of patients, providers, and payers.